Cigarette Trees

Preface: this story is set in the same broad strokes of a universe in which my stories When the New World is Revealed and Doctor Johnson's Flying Car are set. Like those two stories, its title is taken from a song. In fact, two songs form the core of this story. It is left as an exercise to the reader to figure out which.



Private Peter Perks, of Pontefract, was an artful little dodger with a rather funny smile. He was five feet tall, and the pluckiest man in his company. In this miserable war, he was the one who always brought laughter to his companions as they endured the mud of the front. He was perennially goofy, saying that you could simply pack up all your troubles in your kit bag and keep your spirits up.

If there was anything in this world that Private Peter Perks, of Pontefract, loved, it was his cigarettes. He was always smoking a cigarette, no matter the hour. This had gotten him into trouble before. Once, when fighting the Russians outside of Brno, he had been smoking while the men of his company had been lying in wait in the Moravian lowlands. The men were waiting to ambush a Russian convoy that was rumored to contain some strange new weapon based on electricity.

But one enterprising Russian noticed a speck of light in the bushes. It was Private Peter Perks of Pontefract’s cigarette. The Russians called the British bluff and forced them to run away. Even so, Private Perks was plucky enough to take down about thirty Russian soldiers with his rifle. Private Perks was a rather lucky man.

Eventually the Allies kicked the Russians out of Moravia and began the drive to Moscow. There were wonder weapons on both sides. There were very big explosions and robotic planes and guns that shot electricity. But Private Peter Perks, of Pontefract, didn’t care about any of those things. He only cared about his cigarettes.

Once, Private Peter Perks, of Pontefract, was on patrol with some of the other men in his company in Lviv, which had been recently liberated by the Allies. He was on patrol to make sure the city was not secretly hiding subversive elements. Private Perks didn’t know what ‘subversive elements’ meant, but Corporal Cobb told him that it meant the Russians. That was enough for Private Perks.

There, in a public square, Private Peter Perks, of Pontefract, encountered a strangely dressed man in dirty overalls. Private Perks had talked enough with American troops to know that Americans called this sort of person a hobo. He was going around shouting in Ukrainian, but with an American accent. He was handing out fliers. Curious, Private Perks went up to him to ask what he was about.

The hobo said that he was promoting something he called ‘the Candy Mountain Festival.’ The Americans were bringing it because Lviv was a free city now, and that the President wanted to show Lviv, and the rest of liberated Europe, what freedom meant. He handed Private Perks a flier in English (he had them in many languages):



Private Peter Perks of Pontefract read with mild interest until seeing ‘cigarette trees.’ He then decided that he would go to the festival when it started up that night so he could have all the cigarettes he wanted.

That night, Private Perks was getting ready; he was fortunate enough to have gotten leave. Unfortunately for him, Corporal Cobb informed the Company that the Russians blew up Gomel. There were a lot of Allied troops at Gomel that were preparing to advance on Bryansk. From there, they wanted to go to Moscow. Everyone was surprised that the Russians were willing to blow up one of their own cities.

From there, the company, commanded by Major Martin, was ordered to begin moving to Kyiv and then to Kharkiv to prepare to fight the Russians. The Russians were now desperate, said Major Martin, and that the war would be over soon.

Private Peter Perks of Pontefract didn’t want to fight in the war any more. Private Perks didn’t like war. Private Perks had seen too many of his friends die in front of him, and he had killed too many Russians. Private Perks was known for being able to kill many Russians, and being very lucky when confronted by the Russians, but he took no joy in killing the Russians.

Private Peter Perks of Pontefract just wanted to smoke his cigarettes.

As Corporal Cobb was preparing his squad to begin moving to Kyiv, Private Perks was nowhere to be found. He had snuck out of the base to go to the Candy Mountain Festival. As he ran off, he saw that many trucks and tanks and planes were moving to the east to fight the Russians. Apparently, Major Martin’s company was among the last to leave Lviv.

Surely they wouldn’t notice one poor private being gone.

Private Peter Perks of Pontefract followed the instructions on the back of the pamphlet the hobo had given him and made his way to the fairgrounds.

The fairgrounds were almost empty.

He scanned the festival. He could see a gigantic mountain of rock candy towering over everything else. There were pools of whiskey and stew, with abandoned canoes floating in them. There were many bluebirds chirping. One flew by him.

Private Perks noticed that it was not a bluebird, but an automaton designed cleverly to look and sound like a bluebird.

As Private Peter Perks of Pontefract ran through the fair, crossing the bridge over the lemonade springs and navigating the pens where the mechanical hens laid soft-boiled eggs, he began to hear a noise that sounded like an elephant. The flyer hadn’t said anything about elephants. He had thought that there weren’t many elephants in America. Maybe they had brought the few elephants in America here to show them to the people of Lviv what freedom meant.

Private Perks didn’t know that elephants didn’t have to breathe. The elephants kept on blowing their trumpet without stopping. It then occurred to him that all the elephants sounded like they were in the city of Lviv rather than at the fairground. He thought that was strange.

Private Peter Perks of Pontefract continued to wander the empty fairground. The lights were still on. Had they not been on, he would not have been able to see very well, because it was nighttime.

After several minutes of wandering, he finally found them. The cigarette trees. They were wooden poles with smaller poles jutting out of them, filled with cigarettes.

For Private Peter Perks of Pontefract, cigarette trees were like they were from wonderland. He grabbed several, pulled out a lucifer, and lit several. He stuck them all in his mouth at once, and gazed at the stars.

For the first time in his life, Private Peter Perks of Pontefract saw shooting stars. He had always wanted to see them, but now there they were. The shooting stars shot to the west.

Some of the shooting stars began to fall towards the ground. Some of them landed near Lviv. After a few of the shooting stars fell, it looked like Lviv wasn’t there anymore.

Private Perks didn’t know what was going on. Cities didn’t just disappear. He sat there, still in wonder at the shooting stars, but worried one of them might fall on him.

One of the shooting stars fell on the fairground. As he sat there content with his cigarettes, the shooting star lit up Private Peter Perks of Pontefract like he was a cigarette himself.